SITE REVIEW: Great Walk Networking

critter

Newbie

Posts: 7

3+ Months Ago

Hi,

Great Walk Networking is a non-profit organisation. Our site has only been up since September, but was designed in 2005 by a Curtin University design student before we were able to supply much real content.

I've removed some of his features and have added content and more pages...I'm looking forward to comments:

http://www.greatwalk.org.au

krismeister

Graduate

Posts: 202

3+ Months Ago

Hi there,

Your site seems like a good start the your color scheme seems appropriate and some of you imagery very compelling. I have a couple recommendations.

Make it simpler to get to your message board. Maybe you should put the link to your message board at the top of that page.

Change the front page imagery - while it is appealing, When I first landed on the page, I thought you were a summer camp for kids. It sounds like you have all age groups in your organization your front page imagery should reflect that.

I don't recommend the IFRAME the way your footer graphics are designed they are prime for allowing your content to naturally push them down.

On your news letter section instead of making a link to your archive of articles, just have them listed in the side nav.

I feel like the above recommendation will improve the functionality of the website.

It seems you have a nice organization. Thanks for sharing your site with us.

DMX

Newbie

Posts: 13

3+ Months Ago

The site looks nice.

I'll agree with krismeister on first impressions being summer camp.

I got away from using scroll bars inside the page when they are not necessary. This one is also colored to blend with the background. A few visitors may not pick up on it....

Also might consider another pixel on font size, again to include everybody possible. Sometimes, the designer has to scale the font down for some reason. I don't see why in a fluid area in would be that small.

jdrost

Beginner

Posts: 53

3+ Months Ago

It seems very hard to get to where you want people to go. It took me a while before I figured out it is a bulletin board. The idea is good but people may not stay long enough to figure out what you want them to do.

http://linkdirectory.tripple-d.com

critter

Newbie

Posts: 7

3+ Months Ago

Thanks all!

I took most of what you all had to say into account and made changes including a new graphic on the main page and an extra link to the bulletin board:

http://www.greatwalk.org.au

Thanks to you all for commenting on the main image in particular...I wouldn't have spotted the association with a children's camp on my own.

krismeister: I see what you mean about the newsletter archive, but for the time being I can't do much more until I know how many old newsletter will be posted. The page needs a redisign, though...I agree and thanks for mentioning it.

Can you elaborate on the iframe comment, though? I haven't had a problem with the content pushing anything down, so I'm not sure what you are referring to.

DMX...I agree. Thanks.

krismeister

Graduate

Posts: 202

3+ Months Ago

When i saw those scroll bars I was assuming you were using an iframe.

Now that I'm looking at the code looks like you're purposefully making those scrollbars. What was your decision that made you decide to put those in?

critter

Newbie

Posts: 7

3+ Months Ago

Hi kris,

I didn't design the site...and agree with DMX the fluid viewing area is too small...but I think the designer was concerned that search engines don't pick up on material targeted at an iframe, but he liked the functionality of the things. (I'm not sure if that's true...I thought they followed all links, so I don't see why it would be, but maybe someone knows more).

Also the webpages are easy to add to, and our organisation didn't know who would eventually be caring for the site once it went online.

As far as the scroll bars go, I think he intended to change their appearance...it works in explorer, but not in firefox. To be honest, I haven't looked too closely at that code yet.

My main concern is making the frame larger, I think...but that looks like it will be a big task and I can't get to it until Dec/Jan.